Blossoms can drop off for many reasons, most of them beyond your control. Blossom Drop birds poor pollination hard rain wind pests contact with cage or support etc. A single blossom falling off would be almost impossible to determine why but assuming the rest of the plant and the remaining blooms appear fine it usually isn't a cause for any concern. Dave

Definitely best to do regular maintenance. Of course, keep in mind the above advice is for all, including those that garden outside. Indoors has advantages and disadvantages. It's easy to accidentally bring in bugs from the outside. The problem with indoor gardening and bugs is that there are not as many natural predators (spiders always seem to find a way, though) killing off the bugs you accidentally and unknowingly bring in. Hence the need for that regular maintenance. Without natural checks in place, bugs can breed pretty darn fast. Fortunately, they are usually pretty easy to spot - or at least the clues are. With proper care, you certainly reduce the risk of infestation, but it is very easy to miss something and most people don't shower and change their clothes before entering a grow area unless their business depends on it. Spider mites are one of the major problems indoors. You can use neem on those, too. Mike, are you for real or is this a spam log on? Just curious since the name is so new and the link is not to anything pertaining to the thread. Hate to accuse someone of spamming if they are just linking to a site they find helpful, but man this forum gets a lot spam.

I just performed a quick examination at 1030pm tonight and noticed very tiny lime-green critters on the underside of the leaves. Not too many, but like 5 or 6 here and there scattered throughout the plant. They came off easily with the flick of the finger but they were really hard to spot. There's no way I can get a photo of them because of their size. Any idea what they could be? Will a shot of DE under the leaves take care of these pesky things?

Okay, the native soil at my garden is really poor (i.e. deficient in nutrients, no earthworms or microorganisms of any kind in it.....which just further proves my point that the soil is horrible). I have to constantly apply fertilizer to the plants in order for them to do well/not struggle. I will be tilling in horse manure at the end of the season to amend the soil, but I can't do that until the end of season unfortunately. A question about the tangle foot; I found something called tree tangle foot; will this work for flea beatles? I had a question about the sticky traps as well (i.e. using the tanglefoot with the cardboard). You said to place it near the plants....this may seem like a dumb question, but should I put the sticky traps in a straight row along both sides of the row where the eggplant is? Should I just place them all over the garden? How many would I need? My garden is roughly a 40' x 40'. Does the poor soil make the the veggies more prone to flea beatle infestations? I've not only had flea beatle infestations with eggplant, but also napa cabbage and pac choi as well; however the flea beatles always do the most damage with my eggplant (I had eggplant starter plants earlier in the season and the infestation was so bad that they killed my plants) I've read that you should plant trap crops, essentially acting as decoys from the plants you're trying to prevent the flea beatles from infesting. Does this trap cropping method work?